


Sharing Burdens

by blueberry



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Caretaking, Consensual Infidelity, Cuckolding, F/M, Fingerfucking, Pregnant Sex, Season/Series 02-03 Hiatus, Virgin Daryl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 06:02:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3436151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberry/pseuds/blueberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl can't help keeping an eye on Lori during the winter the group spends on the road. Neither Lori nor Rick can help noticing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharing Burdens

"Found you something." And then drop it, Lori looking up sharply as the chocolate bar hit her lap, and then go. Daryl had his crossbow to make the getaway look valid - even though they'd stocked up on the last run and had found this house with its fireplace where they could finally warm up, everybody would believe he'd be enough of a sucker for punishment to go hunt anyway. As Carl might say, he was badass like that.

The expiry date for the chocolate would be in spring and the wrapper wasn't torn anywhere. So Daryl was really irritated when Lori said, " _Damn_ it." She added "Thank you!" when he stopped short, and he did his best to swallow the anger and especially the disappointment before he turned back.

"What, what's wrong with it?"

Lori held it on both palms like it was a treasure, but stared like it required rocket science to figure out. "Are you supposed to eat chocolate when you're pregnant?" she said. 'There's stuff you're supposed to avoid, you know - eggs, fish - and I swear I've heard that chocolate..."

"Damn, woman, it's one bar. Ain't like it's got a liquor centre or anything. There's peanuts in; that's good for you!"

She looked a little lost. "There were all these studies I found like, immediately after Carl was born, telling me I did this wrong and that wrong while pregnant, and now there isn't a damn thing I can read to check this stuff..."

Hershel, sitting beside her, spoke up. "Lori, go on. Just about any nutrition is better than none. And at the risk of stepping into a stereotype, I'd guess some chocolate would make you happier. It stimulates endorphins, you know. Scientifically proven to give you a little boost."

_There,_ Daryl thought, and gestured for her to eat up before he turned to leave. Science was on his side. He filed that fact away for next time.

Everyone was quiet enough that as he walked out he heard the wrapper tearing. And almost right afterwards a sticky smack of teeth and caramel and a grunt, like Daryl himself would have eaten candy when he was a kid and no one was around to whack him upside the head for being a pig. It was probably the loudest sound any of them had made all day, and as Daryl went down the hall he listened to titters going round the room and Lori gummily telling everyone to shut up, and then if anyone wanted some.

You'd better not, he threatened in his head, but at that point he'd jumped down the house's half-a-staircase that no longer reached the bottom, and the creak of strained wood and the thud of his boots hitting the floor blocked out the responses. The pregnant lady needs that more, you poor hungry assholes. Eating for two. Mourning for a lot more; including her two men who wouldn't look at her and probably also feeling really damn sorry for herself, under all that quiet and the tight jaw. And for the baby. And, and, and.

Definitely time to go hunting and quit thinking.

 

They wouldn't stay at the house for long. Couldn't. The broken staircase kept walkers from reaching them but it wasn't good to have the things waiting on them on the ground floor, either, though at least they were easy to pick off from above. The stairs also probably affected the stability of the house, and Hershel could barely manage going up and down. Soon Lori wouldn't be able to do it either. They still stayed for longer than they had stayed in one spot before, finding it hard to leave that fireplace and how good it was to have a protected source of heat that couldn't be seen from a distance.

It rained about the second week they were there. That day Daryl watched half the group relax and the other half tense up. Rain would dull their scents in the area surrounding the house and they could save water in containers; on the other hand, it made it harder to see and hear warning signs from a decent distance. When he dropped to the ground floor to take watch that night and Glenn jumped up to reach the upstairs, he wasn't surprised to see Lori still downstairs, peering out the windows. She was one of the nervous ones.

"Ain't gonna sleep?"

"Can't." Lori gestured towards the other end of the house and then went to pace there, leaving him to cover the back yard.

They rotated their watch areas, each keeping to half of the house but trading off their halves every now and then. It kept them more alert. After a while, Daryl got tired of the indoors and went onto the porch that spanned nearly half the side of the house. Instead of going to keep watch at the other side of the house, Lori followed.

"The windows are so dirty. I keep thinking I see something moving, but it's just the rain, and the dirt makes it look like there are faces, bodies out there," she said, eyes still roving the yard as she spoke to him. She went off to one corner of the porch and took watch from that angle, still except for the way her head darted to look around.

She was wearing the men's sweatshirt he'd found for her, hands tucked in the pouch-pocket. It was huge on her skinny ass, but she'd agreed that she and the kid would grow into it... And what the hell was he staring at her for? There were geeks out there. Daryl went to the other end of the porch.

They went into the house every now and then to keep an eye on the other side, taking it in turns, but always returning to the porch. He wondered if Lori liked being out here too, how it was quiet because it was supposed to be and not because everybody had to be, thinking of the mud that was going to come out of all this rain and hoping a dumb deer would leave clear tracks across some patch of it, or if she was letting nerves and the cold keep her awake. Couldn't go cuddling up to Rick for warmth, after all. Maybe Carol, though - it hadn't been one of the days where Carol was antsy about Rick's orders and it ended up making her and Lori act sore at each other.

He heard Lori breathe deep in a way that didn't sound like a sigh, and that was nice. Maybe what she liked was the choked-up wet smell of the wild garden and the forest over yonder. "Hey," she said, walking over. "You don't have to set your watch to the same clock as me. Pretty sure your shift is over by now, and I'm not going in yet."

"On your head if Hershel gives you a talking-to about not resting."

"Yeah. Yeah, sure. But you go in. Maybe don't say anything about this being my third shift."

"If you're up for it." He shrugged, nodded.

Leaned in and kissed her on the forehead, and she backed up like he'd come at her with a broken bottle.

"Daryl," she said, eyes wide and a hand held out to ward him away, switched onto an even higher alert for danger than she had been. Goddamn it to hell. Well, it hadn't worked on him, why would it work on her? _Fuck._

"I just... It's nothing, gawd," he said, turning to escape. "Goodnight!"

He was just catching himself before he slammed the door to the house when Lori said, "Hey, wait. That was - that was a Carol move, wasn't it?"

Now that he was with these people - had stuck with them long enough for the season to turn in spite of half hating them, long enough he could catalogue a list of habits he looked out for from any one of them to be sure they were on an even keel, had come to allow them to help him - he realised that it wasn't beyond reasonable for him to owe explanations. He wanted to say it wasn't her business, but he'd gone out of his way to make it her business.

Daryl went back to her. Not too close. "She did it once to me and it wasn't a big deal." Carol hadn't meant it to be and he'd figured it was just him who felt like it was; nobody fussed when she did it to Beth, T-Dog, Hershel, or Lori. "Wasn't intended like one this time, either. Just a goodnight."

"There's a relief. For a second I thought I was officially the group's designated turbo-slut."

He furiously knuckled his forehead so he could avoid looking at her, and because if he didn't actually have a headache, it felt like he _ought_ to. "Naw, come on. That's not what I..."

"Thanks. For everything. A lot of everything, these days," Lori said. It was a question, even if she was decent enough to say it in a way that gave him an out to nod and walk away.

The chocolate; the sweatshirt and some other makeshift maternity clothes; the best cuts of meat for her, Carl, and Beth; blankets; a couple of smiles and just acknowledgement, sometimes. He'd thought about it and he'd tried, and even now that the effort felt like it had all been a pain in the ass a part of him was yelling in vindication because she'd noticed.

"I just think - it's not fair." Daryl leaned his forearms on the porch railing to be low enough to duck under her stare. "Couldn't exactly say I think your man ought to be nicer to you. I mean - it's all fucked up, him having to kill Shane. But it's fucked up for you too. _I_ can be nicer to you."

He walked to one end of the porch to watch the yard from that angle, so she could think on that and how angry she might be about the pity. It had better not involve a fight.

When he went back to the conversation he could look at Lori again. She wasn't smiling, but close, like she'd at least prefer to act like it was funny. "Well. Still. No kissing," she said. "Even on the forehead or the cheek. Maybe a good, firm handshake will do, huh?"

"Like it's a hardship not to go kissing you, woman. I'm calling Maggie, hitting the hay."

He held his right hand out. Lori shook her head, rolled her eyes, and took it. His hand was cold enough to give her a jolt, hers warmed from being tucked in the hoodie's pocket, but she held it firmly for a few counts. Showing him they were okay, or needing the gesture in spite of all the eye-rolling. Being alone got you that way sometimes.

 

They were on the road again in a few days sleeping in the cars half the time. He did things for Lori so he wouldn't have to stare and fidget when her own blood did as little as they could bear, and she treated him the same as before. Sat next to him more, though, chatting to him (and usually Carol was there too, making him vaguely imagine what Merle would say about Daryl managing to arrange a woman on either side of himself). She went in for those firm handshakes, which became more like high-fives as they kept exchanging them when he got in a good haul on a hunt or they squeaked out a narrow escape.

Once he had needed to do maintenance on the motorbike, requiring him to do short test-drives to see if everything was back in order. That meant making a lot of noise and eating up the gas, both bad ideas. Lori had quickly told him to give her a crash course so she could do the test drives - learning to ride a motorbike would cross an item off her bucket list, she said. The others might have asked him to leave the bike, Daryl thought, but with Lori looking a little proud about not wobbling anymore, the protests turned into sideways glances. Carl had asked to ride bitch like he'd forgotten his own resentments about the Shane thing for a while, and once he'd started actually smiling, everybody grinned back at the kid and applied themselves to keeping watch. Daryl got the bike sorted out and got to keep the almost-friendly Merle commentary in the back of his head without any extra guilt.

He did enough, though it wasn't really his business to. She did enough, though he didn't think he ought to expect anything in return. It was good.

 

"I spoke to Lori," Rick started, and then came lots of bullshit about how there was more to be done. So to speak.

No way Lori wanted _comfort_. No way anybody needed a fuck so bad it made them crazy-level depressed to go without. No way she told her husband so! No way was a guy who cried at night about murdering someone that screwed his wife and knocked her up going to turn around and tell another man to take up the job, so Daryl gaped as their leader kept losing his mind by method of this speech he was making.

"Don't look at me like..." Rick broke off, walking away to compose himself. They were in a patch of open ground in the forest just off the road, away from the others to talk about 'options'. Options about _what_ to do next, Daryl had assumed, not _who_.

He was ashamed that he backed away when Rick circled back, and let him grasp his shoulder to make it up. "You take care of her," Rick said, lost and earnest. "I'm grateful; I've noticed it and I am grateful for it, Daryl. You don't ... expect more and she doesn't either. It never seems like there's anything like that. You barely treat each other different from how you treat anybody else in the group, but you still ... you've managed to make her happier than anything else has in ... in months."

"Rick, man. _Ain't no goddamn way I'm going to fuck your wife._ "

"I want her to be happy. She's ... I can't. You can."

Daryl kept expecting to feel the hand on his shoulder clamp around his neck. 

"I am an honest man, Daryl. Think on it - I've always tried to be, except for what Jenner told me about the infection. That was to keep a burden from the group I did not believe it could take at the time, and this ... Lori has a burden. She put it on herself, I put it on her too. I still need to help her, though; we're all in this together. This is how we can help her, you and me."

And now it was starting to feel like Rick might try to kill him if he said no.

"Can't order me to do this," Daryl said. It drifted through his mind that Carol would seriously have a field day with this shit. "I follow your lead, decided I would, but Rick..."

So Rick didn't. His lunatic intensity dialled back to argue for Daryl 'just' touching Lori - like he said she had told him she wanted - holding her, sharing bed-space with her before checking to see if anyone else did it first. With Rick's voice quieter, Daryl could hear the others on the road - what if they'd heard some of this argument? He thought Rick didn't exactly mind, or care, or something; when he'd finished up and walked away, he only paused for a second to breathe in deeply.

Daryl stayed where he was until T-Dog and Glenn called for him. Then he had to go before anybody started panicking, but those few steps felt like a long way. The world was crazy, the season was cold, and he could still feel the warmth of Rick's hands steadying themselves on him even through the buzz over every inch of his skin when he now thought of Lori.

 

He and Lori bedded down together a few nights later. Back to back, with Lori closest to the wall because it was the most defensible position - and also with T-Dog at Daryl's front, because the basement they'd found, the last solid part of a half-burnt house, was freezing so there was no getting picky about who you shared blankets with. It was as normal as you could get and Daryl still kept thinking of Rick's driving, urgent voice, and the woman against him. He didn't sleep well. The next day he didn't even look at Lori's face so he wouldn't be tempted to try to figure out how she'd slept.

After they'd sorted through the junk in the basement for anything useful they travelled on, spending days and nights in a few houses, a church, a campground with cabins. The next time they had to sleep in the cars, Daryl parked his bike next to the car Lori had driven and tucked himself behind her where she'd settled on the backseat next to Beth. It wasn't that unusual, nobody kept to slumber party groups of boys vs. girls anymore ... except that they mostly did when it came to spending the night in the cars. He kept his arms to his sides under the blankets until Lori pulled one up to lay between her belly and her breasts, so then he put the other one around her too. It was warmer. More natural way to rest. Really soft.

Not his woman, he thought. She didn't look all that happy from what he could see of her face in the twilight, so that part of the plan wasn't working. She still relaxed against him - instinctive about it, he thought, there was that little hesitation.

A couple of days after that, he and Rick hit the forest trails, hoping for big game to drag back to the others. "You're not worried, being out here?" Rick asked once they'd turned back, having gone out as far as daylight would allow.

" _Worried?_ About-- Oh," Daryl said, halfway through gesturing indignantly at the familiarity of the woods. It had actually been on his mind at the start of the walk that the two of them were going off into isolation. Rick had up and said the thing with Lori was fine, though, and he'd given Shane every damn chance to stop fucking up before putting it all to a stop. He was fair. He'd speak up or at most throw a few punches in warning before getting drastic.

Daryl shrugged.

"That's something, man. That's not how Lori looked at me after I told her, or Carl--" his voice caught "--when he saw what happened. I can guarantee you now, when we get back, they're going to look at me like..."

"We're all going to pull together," Daryl said. "We're going to pull through. There's rough patches on the way, but. We can do it, man."

Rick sighed. "We just need a place to stay still a while."

Every one of them said that prayer. That was the important thing, a place to stay and defend; whatever it took to get them there was fine, as long as it got them there.

"Not going to go out of my fucking tree and try to nail you from behind, either," Daryl said as he kept himself busy checking the fit of the arrow in his crossbow.

When they went back they walked out of the woods shoulder to shoulder. Rick tagged along after him to supposedly learn how to skin what they had managed to catch, and both of them ignored any relief or lingering tenseness from the others.

 

Since Daryl had decided to try making new arrows, the whole group was keeping an eye out for feathers and dumped them on him all the time. Good thing, too, because so far Daryl had made a mess of the project. He was sitting on the ground and leaning against his bike, staring at the latest donation of feathers and his collection of whittled sticks as he gathered patience to try again, when Lori walked over. "I'm heading out." She hitched a thumb at the forest. "I'd like to go some distance if I can. Would you mind coming too before I get lost?"

"You got to pee or something?" Daryl asked.

"A walk. I got to take a good walk. Swimming is supposed to be good if you're pregnant, yoga too, but anything that isn't me with my ass on a car seat would be great right now." She shot him a smile as he got up and put the feathers and sticks away, and gave him one of the high-five handshakes. "Or do you offer yoga? I'd take a lesson."

"Could dig up a book at a library, learn how," Daryl said, and over to the side Maggie and Beth burst out laughing, Maggie actually falling over where she sat. That even made Lori's smile look realer.

It struck him that she only really relaxed when they hit the treeline and got out of sight of the others. She sighed deeply and stuck her gloved hands in her pockets, and that jaw unclamped and she stopped holding herself in the tight way she went around every damn day. 

Rick was a good guy. For sure, a good man: he had know-how, balls of steel, honour, he was really nice and shit. All of that.

Daryl was _better_. Sometimes, in some ways.

Right now. To Lori.

It was a special circumstances thing, but...

"I kind of want to see how far I can go," Lori said. 

"Nope. We go as far as means we can get back by dark."

"Guess I'll have to prove myself another day, then."

"After a whole lot more practice at not sitting on your ass." He put his hands up in surrender as she gave him a sharp look, and that made it enough of a joke that the atmosphere between them stayed good.

Like everybody else Daryl spent his time with who knew dick about the woods, Lori went without taking proper stock of her surroundings - alert for walkers or mountain lions or whatever she might think lived around here, sure, but never checking her trail or the position of the light filtering through the branches. Taking care of that was pretty much his job lately, but right now it put him in mind of the way she'd lean into him when they bunked down. He watched her push ahead through dense vegetation. It was nothing; she wasn't bending over to show off her ass or whatever, and wore practically a dozen layers - he just wanted to keep watching as she powered through as much as she could, determined, keeping a hand on her belly in a protective, sort of sweet way.

"It's like weight training." He waved at the baby bump.

"Oof, you're telling me! Sorry if I'm moving too slow," she added, putting both arms around her belly. "Even if we're going far, I'm not taking chances."

"Good."

She nodded to his vehemence. "Hey, do you want to...?" She patted the bump with a questioning look.

"Is it kicking?" Daryl strode over. He'd had babysitting dumped on him when people around him were too out of their heads to look after their kids, but he'd never felt one in the belly before.

"Nah. I was just wondering if you might want to," she said, unzipping her jacket. "One thing you learn fast when you get pregnant is that people love giving a big old stomach a poke. Family, friends, people at your church, wild strangers, anybody. Once, I was at the park, and this couple wanted their dog to do its hand-shaking trick with my belly, for God's sake."

Buoyant, was the word. He could hear Merle laughing at him for how long it took him to get to it. The heaviness of how she curved was apparent but it did its best to stay light. There was an energy to the skin and muscle through the layers of clothing. Lori was tired a lot, but they couldn't be doing too badly taking care of her if the baby bump gave off this vibe. It was practically addictive; he just wanted to move his hand on it.

"Knew it. Bet you secretly love babies, don't you?"

Lori sounded like she was grinning, and he'd been teased enough on that topic over the years, so he didn't look up or acknowledge the teasing. "So when does the kicking start?"

"Not too long. Can't decide if I'm looking forward to it or dreading it. But you know what's great? Sometimes the baby will push out so you can pretty much see their whole face or hand or whatever, especially when it's really big. Very chest-burster _Alien_ to look at. Gross but cool."

Lori wasn't tired now. Seemed pretty happy, even. "You can see all that?" he mumbled, and without asking, started unbuttoning her over-shirt and pushing up the clothing underneath.

She didn't say he ought to stop, and sucked in a breath that he felt against his palm. "Eventually."

There was still something to look at in the way his hand touched her like it belonged. Even better: the feel of letting his hand slip along the taut skin of her belly and down, out of sight. His other arm went around Lori's shoulders and draped her against him the way they'd got used to. "You cold?" He couldn't ask if she was all right, or wanted this like he did.

"Of course I am. All of us always are." Yeah, she did, her voice wasn't that torn up for no reason. Daryl had a vision of getting deep-throated and messing her voice up good and proper like that, and let out a little whine; Lori kissed him with a firm press of lips. His insides slid sideways and his balls hopped up incredibly prematurely. It should have been embarrassing but he just kept feeling out the weird, perfect curve of her belly, then brushing his fingers over the waist of her pants.

Lori took his hand away and wriggled forwards and sideways against him so that, belly out of the way, she could be close enough to tuck it in her back pocket. "I have a theory."

What the fuck now, Daryl said in his head, unprepared. He pet her hair with his other hand to satisfy himself a little. It had always felt dumb to want to touch it before, like she was a pet, however soft and shiny it looked.

"Rick talked to you about this, right? What did he say?"

"Said you wanted." The fingers of his free hand brushed along her hip. "Said uh, he does want you happy, but he can't..."

"Yeah, he can't be with me like we have an actual relationship, not yet. The rest of the speech I got went something like, 'I spoke to Daryl, and he said this absolutely insane idea is fine with him'." She pulled back a little to watch his reaction. "'Daryl came up and told me he wants to take care of all of us, and you need it especially, Lori, so he'd be willing. I know you'd never do anything if I wasn't saying this, that's why I'm fine with it.' Is that familiar at all?"

"He said," Daryl began, wanting to protest but hearing his words come out with a scoff instead: "Said he was _honest_."

"Yeah? I still know what it's like when he's lying. He lies about shit like this every time - trying to be _nice_ about car crash pile-ups..." Lori's fingertips dug into his shoulders hard enough that it would have hurt if he wasn't wearing his own dozen layers of clothing. But she had a way of joking about things that hurt; she broke off staring into nothing over his shoulder and told him, "Also, no way would you actually say any of that stuff. Talking that much? Daryl Dixon?"

It had cost fucking with their heads some, but this still meant Rick wanted her taken care of. That tight flash of smile she was giving meant that he still wanted to do it. Daryl kissed Lori this time, softer than she'd done it but with his mouth a little open. He wanted _in_ one way or the other, and hands-on, and more. Just more.

Lori held on no matter what he did. She went at him like a hellcat for a couple of minutes there, getting overeager when he backed up so he could lean against a tree - she might have climbed him if she could. Her hands further up his shirt than he'd got with hers, fingernails running along his ribcage and giving him the shakes. The belly got in the way, though, keeping her twisted to the side (and he got another vision of Lori, side-saddle in his lap and screwed right down on his dick; not a good idea to think about, never going to ask - not _right now_ , anyway). Daryl liked it better when she calmed, letting them both take stock of the surroundings and then take things at a more even pace.

With her head resting against his neck and collarbone he could feel the softness of her hair all he liked. She sucked in little breaths and shook as he felt her up in the small stretch of skin he could reach without really undressing her, pressing her mouth to his skin - kisses, maybe words. Pregnancy hormones, right? He'd heard enough dirty stories about those. When his hand slid down into her pants and underwear, past the curls of hair, she moaned with relief.

"How's that, you like that? Tell me, go on. What you want?"

She didn't get it at first. Daryl goaded and followed instructions until she realised more was needed than _there_ and _like that_. "Guess you are a talker after all." Lori ground her head against his chest like she couldn't help it. "Deeper, if you could get your fingers ... in just a ... uh-huh, that's it." She pushed against the heel of his hand, hips rocking hard, then reached down to show him how to move his hand. "And your thumb, like this--switch it up."

Clit, right, that's where it was. "Like, alternating? My thumb, then my hand?" He swiped his thumb around and over the sharp little nub and she made a way more embarrassing whine than he had, and it cut off into immediate breathlessness when he brought the heel of his hand down onto her again. It would have been easy to feel dumb about this but she _loved it_.

"Can I--?" Daryl ground his dick against her leg and she pulled him in by the belt. She was so fucking wet from what he did that he could hear his fingers working. It made his arm weak in a hot rush to think of how it'd be to fuck her - this was that sucking-in feeling he'd heard too many boring assholes talk about, the tightening and squeeze. He couldn't see that he did anything in particular when Lori came, crushing herself against him and holding his hand in place hard, but he was still proud.

He smiled at her more widely than he could remember smiling in forever. And that was before her fingers dragged down the zipper on his pants and just those little metallic vibrations made him want to shove forwards.

"Thanks," he murmured into her hair.

Lori snorted a laugh. "Haven't even done anything yet." She couldn't see what she was doing, the angle she had to stand at to accommodate her stomach almost making her have to peer over her shoulder to see, but Daryl could watch her slender hand on his dick the whole time. Would have been _good_ to have it be her left hand and see that wedding ring. His dick jumped and Lori kissed lightly at his neck and brushed fingers over its straining muscles. Like she was into him and everything. Her hand was sure and firm like she would hold her gun, hot as fever where the air and his slickness wanted to start getting cold, and when she squeezed the head tightly...

Daryl panted like he'd been running after he shot off. He hadn't come that hard in a long time, even back when he did get chances to jack off, and leaned hard into the tree at his back.

"Well?" Lori said.

"Thanks," Daryl said dutifully, trying to figure out the time from the way the sun angled through the leaves and completely distracted by grinning. He snapped out of it when he realised he needed to put his dick away. "You uh, you did, uh, get off, right?"

"You think I'm that good at faking it? I would have thought you could feel pretty much everything." Lori rubbed the back of her hand over her forehead and avoided his eyes. That looked like regret. It made sense, he told himself, given the circumstances. She had still wanted the hell out of him.

"Just wanted to be sure."

"Yeah ... you can be sure." Lori gave him a weird look - but at least the regret wasn't lasting, so he let it go on and on. "Did you really think ... that when... Oh, my God. Did I just take your virginity?"

Daryl huffed. "Wasn't doing nothing with it. Don't go spending it all in one place."

She let out a laugh that had both of them clapping a hand over her mouth. "Damn, woman!" he said, glancing around at the forest. It sounded like she apologised somewhere through all the laughing but she couldn't stop, and he'd never seen her this way even back at the quarry camp, so he couldn't get mad at all.

"Daryl, oh god," she squeezed out when the laughter had turned into little hiccups.

"From what I've heard, you were supposed to say that before, when I was busy," he said, and Lori burst into snickers again. "I could give it another try. That's a woman thing, right? You could."

_That_ did it. Going quiet in a snap, she looked at him with big doe eyes.

He held out a hand. Lori cleared her throat, looked around, and stepped up into him again.

This time Daryl unbuttoned from the top, baring her breasts a little. He didn't think it would have been enough any other time, but here - in the forest, in winter, just the two of them - it got him going so that he kept kissing and nipping the whole time, breathing in for her scent. Lori nearly fucking cried, which probably wasn't normal (here's hoping, damn), so it wasn't just him.

He let her have the tree afterwards because she had a better excuse for unstable knees, stomping around to get his own legs under control. "Thanks," Lori sighed after a while. There were birds chirping, as eager for spring as the rest of them, and the light that filtered through the trees had managed to become warming - it had to be well into the afternoon by now. It was a good moment.

"Better get moving again, right?" Lori said, shoving off the tree.

Daryl nodded. That was always safer.

They were quiet the rest of the walk, enough so that he managed to bag two squirrels. The moment stretched on.

 

Being back with the others made the whole event a lot weirder than it had felt at the time. One look at Carol and he shoved the squirrels at Lori and steered directly away. He went back to the feathers, the sticks, and the intention of arrows, and thought about absolutely nothing else.

Eventually he had to eat, though, and he headed for the circle of vehicles that hid the light of their fire as much as possible. Lori caught his eye. She raised her eyebrows and Daryl nodded because he didn't know what else to do. She nodded back and that was that - she went back to digging through the kitchen bags for the forks and spoons.

Rick turned out to be right behind him, Daryl saw as he looked around to scope out a spot to sit down. It was a miserable thing to know for a second, and to wait for Rick to blow up, deck him, all of it making things that bit harder for everybody; but it wasn't jealousy that had brought Rick over. He was just hungry. He grabbed a dish and went to sit leaning against a tyre, looking into the fire as he waited for everybody to finish dishing, like any normal night.

Maybe more shut down than he usually was. Rick didn't move once everyone else had their food, keeping up his staring contest with the fire.

"Wake up." Daryl leaned over and tapped the rim of Rick's bowl.

"Here, let me," said Carol, getting up and taking Rick's bowl to dish for him, probably out of pity for how he looked like he'd got an unexpected whack to the head. And Lori was staring at Rick as hard as he'd stared at the fire.

It would have been good to ask Rick to tell stories about ... anything, hell, maybe his craziest arrests would be a good topic - except that it would remind him of Shane, which wouldn't help to get him out of his head. Or to take the extreme option and drag him and Lori next to each other, not to talk, just to make like they didn't think touching was a mountain they couldn't climb, when actually it was the simplest thing.

_Found you something_ , he imagined saying, and scoffed. Sure, he could be Cupid; had the bow and arrow already. In his head, Lori added her own not-a-laugh to that crack.

Daryl thought about what he had now that he didn't have before the dead started coming back. About what he still didn't have, and probably wouldn't ever have.

I'm crazy, he thought. This was all on par with any telenovela he had ever watched while high. The biggest issue was probably that it didn't seem crazy to do what had been done. Him and Lori, Rick and him, Lori and Rick. All fucked up and without any answers if you looked at it straightforwardly... Except he felt as if (maybe this was intuition, a foresight - you could hope) the answers were the same as the answers to every day of life out here: You had to keep going. You couldn't give up on the good.

The fire was smothered with dirt and they drove away so that they weren't in the thick of the smoke smell, then stopped for the night just off the road. Everyone who wasn't on watch turned in early. Daryl drifted Lori's way until he was close enough to catch her eye, and after a second glance she gestured him towards the blankets she'd dumped in a back seat for herself and then went to check on Carl. All pretty much the same as this always went, with nothing to it that gave anyone else a cause to suspicion or think the smallest bit worse of the two of them.

Things hadn't changed, after all.


End file.
